


you were never meant to be atlas

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Daisy is Atlas, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29318859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: At the edge of the earth, a girl holds up the sky.
Relationships: Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 25
Kudos: 51
Collections: o for a muse of fire





	you were never meant to be atlas

A girl stands on a mountaintop, where the earth and the sky meet.

No, not quite -

The earth and the sky can’t meet, you see, because the sky will crush the earth and everything on it, and the earth will crack the sky open. But the earth still wants the sky, and the sky still wants the earth.

(Sometimes, we seek destruction.)

A girl stands on a mountaintop, where the earth reaches for the sky, and the sky reaches back, and she keeps them apart. That is her lot in life, the sky on her slender shoulders. She holds it without complaint - she does not think about the unimaginable weight bowing her forward. She thinks about the flowers at her feet, their yellow centers and white petals, and tries to remember if she ever had a name.

If she did, she’d like for it to be _Daisy_.

Not many people know of her there; not many people think of the earth and sky as separate, and even of those who do, not many of them wonder what keeps them apart.

Melinda wonders.

She wonders, so she asks.

The gods are unkind. They don’t like to be questioned, least of all by a woman who has outsmarted them, cheated death, a hundred times (maybe more - no, definitely more). 

The gods are unkind, which is why there is a girl on the mountaintop in the first place. The sky ( _Skye_ , a voice whispers to her, _are you there, Skye_?) is too heavy for one person to bear, but the gods asked her to bear it anyways. And she did - does - but she loves the world. She doesn’t remember most of it ( _Skye, please answer me, where are you?_ ) but she loves it nonetheless.

 _My name is Daisy_ , she says to the dirt.

It doesn’t answer.

She’s saving the goddamn earth, and the earth won’t even respond.

How cruel.

Back to Melinda, though -

Melinda asks, and the unkind gods answer. Not out of any benevolence on their part - what part of _unkind_ are you not understanding? - but because they do not expect Melinda to do anything.

She does, of course. She is a woman of defiance (expectations don’t belong within spitting distance of her) and she finds the mountain where the girl waits.

Something else to know about Melinda, first: she had a daughter, once.

Remember Melinda cheating death?

The gods are unkind. They punish the people who cheat them, and when they could not find a punishment to bring the warrior woman to her knees (her liver isn’t that important, she can roll a rock over and over, no fruit is tempting enough no matter her hunger), they take her daughter.

Melinda wouldn’t have defied them if she’d known. Her daughter is - _was_ \- innocent.

At night, sometimes, she still calls out for her little girl. _Are you there? Please answer me, where are you?_

_I’ll find you, I promise I -_

When she wakes up she pretends it doesn’t hurt. It does.

Everything hurts, and Melinda thinks sometimes she deserves it, for letting them sweep her baby away from her.

Standing at the bottom of the mountain, she thinks she deserves whatever pain it takes her to get to the top.

(Sometimes, we seek destruction.)

Daisy - her name is Daisy now, not that anyone else is there to call her by it - stands still, sky ( _Skye_ ) on her shoulders.

She isn’t used to looking up. She hasn’t looked up in… ever? Has she ever looked up? She doesn’t remember.

She isn’t used to looking up, but when she hears the footsteps, she does.

The sky starts sliding from her shoulders.

She looks back down.

 _Skye_?

The time the voice is not nibbling at the edges of her consciousness, it’s - it’s here, with her. She looks up again, barely cares when the sky starts slipping off her shoulders.

_Mom?_

She doesn’t know how she knows this woman, but the word tumbles out, and -

 _My name is Daisy now_ , she says.

Her mother nods, and Daisy looks back down. 

The weight is heavier now.

She has a _mother_ (a mother!) and the sky is heavier.

It’s easier when there’s nothing to go back to, when there is nothing to life but the earth and the sky and making sure they don’t touch, but…

The weight is lighter now?

Daisy turns, and _she can turn_. She can move, because the weight is gone. She rolls her aching shoulders, stretches her knees, so used to being locked into place, so used to bearing much more weight than they should.

She turns, and she looks her mother in the eye.

Her mother is mortal, and it is obvious in the way she nearly buckles under the weight of the sky. The sky is strong (the earth is strong), but Melinda is stronger.

 _Rest_ , Melinda says. The weight on top of her is nothing, nothing at all.

Her daughter is alive.

Her daughter is alive, and she will not have to bear the sky alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Blue (@smallblueandloud) for being the best cheerleader ever <3


End file.
